


you are the morning when it's clear

by infiniteviking



Category: Eckert (ElecTRONica), Kevin Flynn - Fandom, Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Evolution, Tron: Legacy (2010), Tron: Uprising
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Drama, Flashbacks, Gen, Missing Scene, Offscreen character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 12:23:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1778983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteviking/pseuds/infiniteviking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They'd all been written for better things. Zuse, from his beginning to the very end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you are the morning when it's clear

Castor died in a gridbug attack on the outskirts of Bostrum City. The first Zuse knew about it was when the Administrator himself carried the fallen program's disc back to the End of Line, presenting it in private with sorrowful ceremony. At the time, Zuse thought the gesture uncommonly kind. He wasn't to reevaluate it until much later.

"Those gridbugs shouldn't have been there," Clu growled, his arm heavy around Zuse's shoulder. "I'll have Tron run a full security sweep; we can't let this happen again. In the meantime, I don't want any panic. Don't spread any information about what happened out there."

"Understood." A panic, indeed, would be counterproductive. Zuse looked down at the white disc, running his thumb across the rim, needing the confirmation of its meaning. "I'll keep it vague. A very unfortunate accident--"

"You misunderstand. I want no information out there. None."

Zuse's brow furrowed, and unease rippled through his code for the first time of what was to be many.

"Castor was popular," he said slowly. "One of my top entertainers, a favorite amongst Basics and ISOs alike. Say as little I might, he will be missed, and no word on why would breed exactly the wrong sort of atmosphere."

Clu’s breath hissed out, and his arm abruptly fell away. He stalked off toward one of the wide windows, his strides just a little too long for Zuse to comfortably match, framed by the unsettling energy he tended to radiate when something was about to change.

"He's been reposted to one of the colonies,” the Administrator said at last. “Top-secret directive. Your personal supervision. You can't say any more because it's all hush-hush. That should keep 'em happy."

An odd story, difficult to back up, but then, not backing it up was apparently the point. "Very well." Zuse ran gloved fingers over Castor’s disc, turned it over, hung it on his thumb as both hands folded over the head of his cane. “One would hope that no such unfortunate incident will happen again.”

Clu turned, smiling: a promise, amounting almost to prophecy. 

"Count on it."

 

The news was worse when the rest of it filtered into the club later that night. Six ISOs dead in the same reported gridbug attack, not to mention rumors that one had actually been carried away, either by the bugs or (some murmured, more darkly) by other unknown assailants. Few of the ISOs had attention to spare for a missing entertainer, though one Arjian was surprised not to see him and frowned when Zuse repeated the cover story.

"Secrets and covert operations, even for fun, are not our way." She sounded sincere, and hurt. "I'd be surprised if any of our factions had welcomed such an initiative."

"What can I say?" It was a trapped, crawling feeling, twisting between the Administrator's directive and the practical difficulty of keeping a lid on the truth. "An indefinite leave of absence must be explained somehow. But I am certain that if he were here he would be just as shocked at this millicycle's news as I am. Such a tragedy -- Tron City too is lessened by the loss of our cousins."

“I know." So gentle in their innocence, his ISO guests. “He always did care. Will you give me a ping when he gets back? And tell him we asked after him? My friends and I worry."

"About Castor?"

"He’s a good program. He stands up for us. Not many do, anymore."

Zuse frowned inwardly, raising his brows at the matter-of-fact pessimism. Surely here, where the Grid's chatter was translated into the Grid's future, such an attitude could only whistle up trouble. "Dangerous words, my dear. Surely you're mistaken."

"Dangerous times," she answered softly. "My name is Ada -- yes, like your sister. Is she here tonight?”

"Another millicycle, I’m afraid." Smiling, yes, as Clu had smiled, for that was how the magic worked. "But I can assure you that she will be here on schedule."

He hoped he was right.

 

(Piercing light poured through his frame as the sounds around him resolved into words: one voice, trading lines back and forth like music in counterpoint, bickering variations on a mutual theme.

“There we go.” The voice laughed, warm and infinitely pleased, and sturdy hands caught him by the shoulders. “You’re going to rock everyone’s world. Clu, this is Zuse -- I wrote him to fill that hole we’ve got in Tron City’s night life. He’s got the rhythm, he’s got the vibe, he’s got everything, don’t you, Zuse?”

“Yes,” said Zuse, and then, with more confidence, “Yes.”

The room resolved around them, gold and blue and white, and it was dizzying, standing between the one voice and the other. His cautious scan was slapped aside by Clu’s peripherals, but the other -- _Flynn_ \-- his presence was dazzling.

“You’ll find everything you need on your disc,” Flynn was saying. “Put together a gameplan and run it by Clu before you make any big decisions. I’ll take a look from the outside if I get a chance, but otherwise you’ll be on your own. I want this town hopping by the next time I get back. Think you can handle that?”

Before Zuse could respond, Clu moved in, leveling a look at him that almost, almost rooted him to the floor.

“Excuse us a minute.”

He didn’t quite take Flynn by the arm, but somehow drew him along anyway, steering the User [ _their_ User, Zuse’s too, for all Clu had been made in his image] away toward the wall.

Ah. Privacy, while they discussed what was to be done with him.

The room was small and there wasn’t much real privacy to be had, but Zuse turned aside and pretended to be fascinated by the perfect pattern of tiny hexagons running along the ceiling. He was a -- what? Reaching inside himself for a definition, he found many words that would serve. He had _options_ ; he needed not wait on anyone -- he could entertain himself while the words floated back from across the room: “chaotic influence” and “already have plenty of general managers” and “if there weren’t so many redundancies in the population--” “ _backups_ , man, backups, you know, the world’s moving on out there; where did you think they were going to go if I didn’t bring them in?”

By the time they returned, he had discovered the cane that had been looped over his elbow, and was leaning on it unconcernedly, raising his brows in a silent query. 

Flynn’s arm was around Clu’s shoulder, now. Zuse found that he missed it.

"See...." Flynn's free hand moved upward, then out, and calculations raced through Zuse’s frame: vectors, possibilities, each separate line and angle a potential act of creation. “You and I, Clu, we’re building a better world in here. But we’re still going to need a buffer when we start to let people in, and that’s him.”

“You’re going to ask me,” Zuse wet his lips, gauging the risk of interrupting while the system administrator had that look on his face. “To -- grease the wheels, as it were. To ease the transition between newcomers and locals who might not immediately understand one another.”

“That’s it!” Flynn grinned, and shook Clu’s shoulder, turning to him again. “See? He gets it. You’re going to be managing the system; you can’t be everywhere at once, any more than I can. That’s where he comes in. He’s the welcome wagon.”

“And I assure you,” Zuse interjected smoothly, “you couldn’t ask for a better.”

Raising his chin, serene in certain apprehension of his own identity, he graced them both with a small, inviting smile, perfectly calculated to intrigue and delight; and in the privacy of his mind, rolled on his tongue the title he had chosen for himself.

Master of ceremonies.

It was a start.

Flynn was still smiling, expansive with the knowledge that he’d already won. “Zuse here is one of the most complex programs I'm going to run here, apart from you. I want him to know the Grid inside and out by the time I get back.”

"I see," mused Clu, his eyes fixed on the host. "He's bound to be indispensable.")

**Author's Note:**

> Every now and then I rewatch Legacy and think about Eckert, as one does.~ And also about Zuse, and what he wanted, and to what lengths he didn't mind going to get it. And it occurred to me that for a program who presents himself as a glorified emcee, his political ambitions were way out of his league... unless.
> 
> Some aspects of this had been in my Eckert headcanon for years, but... consider it, too, the only chapter in my Grand Unified Theory of Zuse.
> 
> (Yes, Castor and Zuse are different programs for the purposes of this fic. I figured he'd had to get the alias from somewhere.)
> 
> (NOTE: This fic will probably consist of four chapters and an epilogue. The epilogue is nearly written, but the middle three need a whole lot of work, and they'll be here when they get here. The violence rating may go up, depending on what happens in Chapter Three.)


End file.
